The stench of death rocked him. From the shadows a wraith of a man with long, incongruously thick white hair stared back at him, his eyes cavernous in the darkness. His face was pocked with wet red sores the size of sixpence, and moisture stained the nightshirt pink beneath his velvet dressing gown.
At Yarmouth’s castle Wyn had seen a portrait of the duke—a picture of a man in the middle of his life, tall, aristocratically slender and weak-chinned, with round eyes and tapered shoulders exaggerated by an indolent pose, his elbow propped upon a bust of a long-deceased emperor. Caligula, probably.
The monstrosity before Wyn bore little resemblance to the nobleman in that portrait.
“Your Grace, I would bow but these fellows have me trussed too tightly. Or— Wait . . .” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “No, I wouldn’t bow anyway.” He shrugged, the shackles digging into his wrists.
The duke nodded and the gray woman pulled the curtain back farther. A pair of dueling pistols rested upon the foot of the bed, perfectly presented atop the satin coverlet as though still in their case.
Wyn’s throat constricted. “Ah,” he said conversationally, “you aim to finish this in a gentlemanly manner.” Curious. Yarmouth looked barely capable of lifting his hand, let alone of gripping a weapon.
“The s-second . . .” The old man’s voice rasped, unused, but diseased too. Syphilis, perhaps, by the look of the sores. If so, this creature sunk upon the mattress had been suffering for some time.
Wyn lifted his brow. “The second?”
“The second . . . is . . .” Yarmouth’s cravat pulsed. “ . . . if you miss the first.”
This, Wyn had not anticipated. In the duke’s eyes now he saw the madness. Madness, yes, that may have been there when he had raped and tortured his young ward, Chloe Martin, a girl of no more than sixteen when Wyn found her, fleeing her guardian after finally escaping him. Madness caused by the disease, or merely exacerbated by it.
“Given the hospitality I have been offered today, I don’t suppose you intend to pay me for this assassination, as you did for the last,” he said laconically. “Do apprise me, then, Your Grace, of your purpose. If you are able.”
“Kill . . . me.”
“If I am given one of those pistols, I will shoot the large man to my left in the kneecap. If I am then given the other, I will shoot this scarred chap likewise. It would be foolish of me to do otherwise, of course.”
A wild gleam lit Yarmouth’s eyes. “I hired you . . . to assassinate . . . a French—”
“Spy. That you did. And, imagining myself immensely clever, I gladly accepted your offer, before, that is, I learned that the so-called spy was no more French than you or I, merely a girl upon whom you had practiced your depraved fantasies until she was so scarred she could barely run. Yet still she found the courage to escape you. Remarkable, the human will, isn’t it?”
Fingers thick with lesions scrabbled the bed linens. “Kill me.”
“And satisfy you? Two birds with one stone? End the wretched misery of your existence while damning me to execution for defying you five years ago? Attempting to defy you, that is.”
“Your letter . . . You-ou vowed . . .” His head shook, uncontrolled tremors.
“I vowed to kill you the next time I saw you,” Wyn agreed. “For setting me up to kill her. For lying to me. For—” He could no longer withhold the anger. “She was under your protection. A girl. Given to you to protect after her parents died. Instead you hurt her.” His hands were fists, the shackles cutting his flesh.
“Vanity . . . got the better of you.” The mouth contorted into a grin. “You killed her.”
By accident. A message sent to the duke—Chloe the willing bait to lure Yarmouth to his death—Wyn crouching in an alley after midnight—a steady hand yet a head full of brandy—Chloe stepping through the door first—not the plan.
How the duke had laughed, his mirth bubbling down that dark corridor of hell as he’d strolled away unharmed.
Weeks later, arising from the trough of forgetfulness into which he’d sunk himself that night after Jin helped him find a proper grave for the body, Wyn had written the duke a letter. Then after five years awaiting opportunity to breach the duke’s impregnable fortress, Lady Priscilla had provided that chance, to fulfill the promise he’d made Chloe Martin as she’d lain dying in his arms.
“The horse was another lie, wasn’t it? Lady Priscilla was your ploy to lure me once again to do your bidding. You want to die and end your suffering, but you haven’t the courage to do it alone. For my attempt at defying you five years ago, I am to have the honor of once again pulling the trigger, aren’t I?”
He stared into Yarmouth’s dessicated face and, with a clarity born perhaps of equal parts fury and satisfaction, he recognized at this moment his own misdeed. He should not have hurt Diantha. Ready—eager—to trust him that morning, she might have done what he wished had he explained the danger. She might have listened for once, and helped him keep her safe.
He said quietly, “There is no greater honor than to be entrusted with a woman’s safety and happiness.”
The slightest, smallest gasp like a sigh came from the veiled woman in the chair. But Wyn did not remove his attention from the duke.
“You are a twisted man, Your Grace. You deserve to linger in this misery until your madness takes you entirely. For I will not assist you.” Not now that he had discovered the tragedy in deception. Not now that he had tasted life.
“She fought me.” The words were softly spoken, barely a damp breath from Yarmouth’s lips. “Dear Chloe . . . fought . . . every time.” The mouth shaped into a grimace of pleasure, the eyes bright.
Wyn turned his face away. “Take me from here,” he said to the guard.
Chopper glanced at the cavern of the bed.
Wyn did not know if the duke assented or if his guards could no longer bear their employer’s presence either. They pushed him toward the stairwell, and as he went to his uncertain fate below he thought of Diantha . . . safe. He even smiled.
She would not have listened to him. If he’d told her all, she would not have allowed him to hide her away to ensure her safety—not again, not after the abbey. She would have insisted on helping him and by now she would be here, the duke’s prisoner, just as he. Instead she was safe in Savege’s house, with Grimm keeping watch for surety.
They came to the landing above the basement the moment the door there opened, revealing the Highlander who had promised Wyn the night before that he no longer worked for the Duke of Yarmouth.
And, behind Duncan, Diantha.
Wide-eyed, hair tumbling from a bonnet askew, spots of pink where her dimples ought to be, her mouth tied with cloth and wrists bound with rope, she looked at him and her body went slack.
Duncan caught her up against his side.
“What’s this?” Chopper scowled. “Bringing your fancy piece here, Donnan?”
“Does she look like a fancy piece, ye dolt?”
The big guard slavered. “Share a bit of the fun with us, mate?”
Duncan’s gaze came straight to Wyn. “No, lads. This lass here be for the pleasure o’ His Grace.”
Chapter 29
Diantha gagged. She knew the lie was to throw the duke’s ruffians off their guard, but even the notion revolted. Swallowing down bile as well as the strip of her shift stuffed between her lips allowed, she recovered from the false swoon and struggled to right herself against Lord Eads, fighting not to look at Wyn. If she looked— truly looked—she might actually swoon.
Iron shackles. Blood. Everything inside her screamed to tear out the ruffians’ eyes with her fingernails.
She closed her eyes to slits and groaned then shook her head in weak protest, playing the part as Lord Eads had instructed her in the hired hackney coach while they’d bolted through the streets to this house.
“Goddamn you, Eads.” Wyn’s voice sounded barely human.
The big ruffian looked her up and down like she was dinner.
But the other seemed skeptical. “Listen here, Donnan.” He shook his head. “The duke ain’t—”
And then the tiny landing between two sets of narrow stone steps erupted into a melee of male aggression.
